Green Innovation Centres - SEWOH Initiative
The objective of the SEWOH Green Innovation Centres Program (ProCIV) was to support the innovative approaches and techniques in the agriculture and food sector. The program focused on the value chains peanut, cashew and soya. In these value chains, it aimed at increasing the income of small-scale farmers and employment as well as food security in selected regions in Togo. The program promoted networking between local innovation partners so that innovations were able to spread better and faster. The innovation centres also promoted knowledge building and dissemination by providing advice, training and access to loans to support innovations. Wherever possible, they cooperated with existing knowledge centres, research facilities and agricultural colleges. As women generally had poorer access to means of production and education, the innovation centres addressed their needs in particular, for instance by providing special training and advisory services.
The Consortium GFA/KIAG was responsible for component 3: “Implementation of an Agribusiness Information System (AIS)”. The focus was on the development and implementation of an integrated ICT-based information system to collect e.g. data on agricultural product prices in local markets, metrological data and on prepared innovations, and to communicate this information to the target group through mobile phones (e.g. SMS, USSD, IVR and Apps), rural radios and internet including social media. The system was fully based on the information needed by the target groups to increase and innovate their agricultural production and to improve their incomes.
The Togolese Ministry for Agriculture was able to analyse the collected data through an AgriIntelligence solution to refine their growth-enhancing activities and for data-driven policy making. The Consortium was responsible for both - the IT-development and the definition and implementation of efficient processes with the various stakeholders. This included training of stakeholders and target groups.
The ICT-based AIS was open for further developments and add-ons, and folloed the latest trends and best practices in the global discussion and research on ICT for Development (ICT4D).
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